“Either the government people in charge are thoroughly incompetent or the political leadership does not have the political will to get the needed reforms done”
IF THERE is anything that should have jolted us as a nation to prepare well for the “big one” to mitigate property damage and loss of life during natural calamities, it was Typhoon Yolanda.
The devastation caused by that typhoon as we know it was incalculable.
Preparation is always the key to success in any endeavor.
As the old military training slogan tells us, “the more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.”
But in the last 12 years after Yolanda, what have we to say about preparing?
I am afraid that there is not much to brag about. That is why in spite of all the rhetoric about flood control measures in the Metro area, nothing much has been done.
In fact, it has gotten worse as proven in the last few days of torrential rains. This tells us many things.
Either the government people in charge are thoroughly incompetent or the political leadership does not have the political will to get the needed reforms done.
As the news is telling us also, there have been substantial property damage caused by the heavy rains due to flooding as well as several deaths.
And there will be a lot more before the rainy season is over.
As it has been inculcated into our minds, 19 typhoons enter the country’s area of responsibility every year with several of these hitting landfall.
Since we are only on letter D, that means we have 15 more to go and before the rainy season is over, we will again be counting our losses.
Yet, as the TV footage is showing, many Local Government Units are still unprepared to deal effectively when there is a crisis at hand.
That vehicle for instance that was carried by flood waters somewhere in Caloocan City that resulted in the death of the elderly driver and his lady passenger could have been prevented if government personnel with authority were the ones posted in the area to caution drivers instead of civilians.
Based on the reports, there were civilians in the area who tried to caution the driver not to proceed anymore because of the strong water current but he did not stop.
LGUs are basically left to fend for themselves because there is no national comprehensive crisis management system dictating protocols for every level of government unit to follow.
It’s still a “kanya kanya” system which is why we are witnessing that there are some LGUs that are better at responding to disasters than others.
For those that do not have a system in place, these LGUs are left depending on what national government offices like the Department of Social Welfare can provide for assistance. But what happens if the crisis is a lot more serious?
What is needed is a national government initiative to come up with a crises management system at the national, regional, provincial or city and down to the municipal level with defined responsibilities at every level.
Managing a crises is not as simple as it looks.
It is a bit more complicated because responsibilities of all participating government units must be well defined to avoid confusion and pinpoint responsibilities.
Response is not only about distributing food packages.
There has to be a system in place that is known by every participating government official no matter what rank that official holds.
Because there is no system in place, this shows in the way the government is responding to calamities nowadays which is unfortunate considering that a national crisis management system was started during the administration of then President Gloria M. Arroyo with the help of the British Government under then Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Unfortunately, when PGMA left office this was discontinued. Three years later, Typhoon Yolanda struck.
As a result, many of those people who went to train in the UK were no longer in government as well as those trained locally by crisis management experts who came from the UK.
Had the program continued, the government would have developed a crisis management system that is mature enough to be able to handle all types of natural disasters and be able to manage the response professionally and efficiently unlike what we are witnessing today.
That program should be revived.
